Online Music Stuff

[Justin Terveen]

Oh my my my.... Found this on the page and had to share....


Go ahead, open the box (http://danspotting.blogspot.com/2006/01/go-ahead-open-box.html)
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Danspotting

Oh my. I have a new toy. Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/) is simply the greatest tool for discovering new music, ever. Sure, iTunes is great once you know what you want to buy, but you have to already know what you’re looking for. And those college networks we all “borrowed” mp3s from a few years ago? You either got stuff you already liked or it was a total crapshoot. But oh, Pandora… Pandora is different. You type in a song you like and Pandora’s computers dissect its musical DNA and construct a playlist composed of similar music. You don’t get to choose what you listen to directly – Pandora doesn’t *play* the song you input; it merely finds music with similar qualities and streams them for you. As the website says: "It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.”

I’ve played with it for several hours and have yet to come across a song I didn’t like. There are no commercials, it’s totally free, you do not have to download any special software to run it, and it offers a direct link to buy any song you hear off iTunes.

It’s just fantastic.

[Cole]

Yep, I love it.

[Justin Terveen]

^ for sure... great resource...

[jsoto3]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[Justin Terveen]

^ my pleasure :)

[RobertB]

I really liked Pandora, but I haven't had time to play with it after setting up my first station with a few artists (ranging from the Dixie Chicks through Charlie & Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis to Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash). But I did sign up for the email list, which just delivered this interesting note:

Date: 20 Mar 2006 15:22:01 PST [05:22:01 PM CST]
From: tim.westergren@(removed but you can figure it out).com
To: (me)
Subject: Calling all Dallas and Denton music fans!

If you've visited Pandora's blog lately, you know that I am in the middle of a big road trip in search of great new music to add to Pandora and the Music Genome Project. I kicked off the trip at SxSW in Austin and am slowly winding my way to the East Coast.

Next stops: Dallas and Denton on March 20-22.

As part of my mission to find yet-to-be discovered artists to feature on Pandora, I'll be hitting open mikes and other live music venues. I'm also hoping to visit the legendary Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. This is the place that has nurtured among others Erykah Badu, Roy Hargrove; cellist John Koen, Edie Brickell and, more recently, Norah Jones. At some point I'd also like to check out the University of North Texas in Denton, and its jazz program.

If you have ideas on places to go, please go to the trip blog at http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/

I'll also shortly be posting the time and location for an informal meet-up (most likely in Denton) - come by and say hello.

Cheers,

Tim Westergren
Founder, Pandora

You are currently subscribed to receive email updates from Pandora. If you would like to unsubscribe, please reply to this email with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line.

[Justin Terveen]

He's a really cool guy.. Whenever Pandora first came out, I sent him a thank you note and much to my surprise he responded. We're supposed to grab a beer while he's in town if anyone would like to join us.

[Justin Terveen]

I'd like to hear other ppls stations.. Post a few, if you don't mind..

Here is my favorite (http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh10175671)

[drumguy8800]

Holy crap. How cool. It works.

[Agnus Dei]

Have you all played with Music Plasma (now Live Plasma, it seems)? It's fun: http://www.liveplasma.com/

I need to play with Pandora. I've fiddled with Last.fm, but not this one. I like new toys!

[DallasTT]

I like

[RadicalBender]

Pandora's cool and all, but it seems to work best if the kinds of music you like is at least somewhat related. It seems to struggle with having all kinds of random music as favorites. I started my station out with some upbeat punk rock stuff (The Ataris, The Donnas), but then when I tried to diversify it a bit, it wouldn't get away from the original upbeat punk rock.

It's doing a bit better now (AC/DC followed by Blackalicious), but just like Last.fm, it doesn't know what to do with someone whose favorites include Jimmy Eat World, Big & Rich, Matisyahu, Johnny Cash, Gorillaz, They Might Be Giants and Queen.

Oh well. I keep trying. :)

[RobertB]

Pandora's cool and all, but it seems to work best if the kinds of music you like is at least somewhat related. It seems to struggle with having all kinds of random music as favorites. I started my station out with some upbeat punk rock stuff (The Ataris, The Donnas), but then when I tried to diversify it a bit, it wouldn't get away from the original upbeat punk rock.

It's doing a bit better now (AC/DC followed by Blackalicious), but just like Last.fm, it doesn't know what to do with someone whose favorites include Jimmy Eat World, Big & Rich, Matisyahu, Johnny Cash, Gorillaz, They Might Be Giants and Queen.

Oh well. I keep trying. :)
Since Pandora allows you to create different "stations", perhaps you could put AC/DC and Big & Rich in one station, and Johnny Cash and Queen in another.

[RobertB]

I just got this email:

Subject: Pandora Town Hall meeting in Dallas!
From: "Tim Westergren" <tour (at) pandora.com>
Date: Thu, September 7, 2006 19:04

Hey, Tim here,

I'm coming to Dallas! The evening of Thursday, September 21st I'll be at the
Magnolia Theatre for an informal town hall meeting. Hope you can make it. There are
lots of Pandora listeners in Dallas, and I thought it would be great to have a
chance to meet some of you.

I've been holding town hall meetings for the past few months (check out our road
trip blog at
http://dbm.pandora.com/t?r=927&ctl=13D8916:E78D3942D1F0614C9FCCBC9E9761EAF6050542 759970026E
to see where I've been and where I'm going). They've been great opportunities to
talk with folks who are using the service - not only to discuss Pandora, but also to
talk about the evolution of the online music world in general.

This free event will be a great opportunity for me to hear what's on your mind. I'll
also have some cool Pandora stuff for everyone.

Please let me know if you'd like to come by replying to this email.

Details:
WHAT: PANDORA AND THE FUTURE OF MUSIC
WHEN: Thursday, September 21st at 7 pm
WHERE: The Magnolia Theatre
3699 McKinney Avenue
http://dbm.pandora.com/t?r=927&ctl=13D8915:E78D3942D1F0614C9FCCBC9E9761EAF6050542 759970026E
RSVP: Reply to this email

Among the questions we hope to tackle:
-How is technology changing the nature of radio?
-How important are community and peers when it comes to discovering music online?
What's the best way to foster community?
-Can services like Pandora help create a larger middle class of artists who aren't
superstars, but have enough of an audience to support themselves through their
music? Do music lovers want more music discovery?

I hope you will be able to join me. As I mentioned, we have a lot of listeners in
the area, however not all have opted to receive our emails, so please feel free to
forward this email on to those you think might like to attend. Again, this is a free
event but we'd love to get an idea in advance of how many people are coming so
please RSVP.

See you soon,

Tim
Note that the links above have inscrutable codes that will probably let our close buddy Tim know that I read his email, but that's ok. I haven't used it in months, but Pandora's pretty cool.

[jsoto3]

Anyone else using Project Playlist yet?

http://www.projectplaylist.com/